Author's Preface
I followed her inside, and before the front door had even closed behind me, I recognized the smell.
Coffee.
Cinnamon.
Fabric softener.
My chest tightened.
It was the same smell that greeted us every Christmas morning. The same smell that lingered after birthday parties and Sunday dinners. I couldn’t count how many times Francisco and I had stood in this very entryway taking our shoes off before one of us inevitably yelled, “We’re here!”
Only…
We weren’t.
Not yet.
My eyes wandered around the room almost on their own. The framed family pictures still hung in the same places I remembered. A little table sat beneath the front window with fresh flowers in a vase. The couch had changed over the years, but the layout of the house hadn’t. I could’ve walked through it blindfolded.
It was like stepping into one of my own memories.
Only everyone else’s memories were sixteen years behind mine.
“Ma?”
A woman’s voice drifted from farther inside the house.
I looked up.
Camila rounded the corner carrying a basket of folded laundry. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-three or thirty-four, but I’d only ever known her in her late forties. The gray hairs she’d always joked about hadn’t appeared yet. The little laugh lines around her eyes were gone.
She looked… lighter.
She stopped when she saw me.
For a brief second, confusion crossed her face before she looked toward her mother.
“Everything okay?”
Her mother smiled.
“It is.”
Camila looked back at me with the warm smile I’d seen a thousand times before.
“Hi. I’m Camila.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because introducing herself felt so backwards.
I knew who she was.
I’d cried on her shoulder.
I’d sat beside her in hospital waiting rooms.
I’d watched her become a grandmother.
She was one of my closest friends.
But to her…
I was just another teenage girl standing in her kitchen.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I managed.
Before either of us could say another word, another voice floated down the hallway.
“Mami?”
A girl appeared around the corner, drying her wet hair with a towel.
She looked about fourteen.
Dark curls.
Bare feet.
An oversized T-shirt that nearly swallowed her whole.
She glanced at me with the effortless curiosity teenagers have before looking back at Camila.
“Who’s she?”
Camila smiled.
“I’m not sure yet.”
She rested a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“This is my daughter, Natalie.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Natalie.
My sweet Natalie.
I remembered helping her decorate her first apartment. I remembered sitting beside her after her first real heartbreak, telling her she’d laugh about it one day even though she didn’t believe me. I remembered holding her babies before anyone else did because she’d insisted, “You’re basically family.”
And here she stood.
Fourteen years old.
Looking at me like we’d never met.
“Hi,” she said politely.
I opened my mouth.
For one terrifying second, I almost answered with, “It’s so good to see you.”
Instead…
“…Hi.”
She smiled politely before looking back at her mom.
“We’re heading upstairs,” Camila said to her mother. “If you need anything, let me know.”
“I will, mija.”
Camila nodded without another question.
She didn’t ask who I was.
She didn’t ask why I was there.
She simply trusted her mother.
As they started toward the stairs, Natalie looked back one more time and gave me a small wave.
I waved back.
My eyes burned.
Francisco’s mother waited until they disappeared upstairs before speaking.
“They’re exactly where they’re supposed to be.”
I looked at her.
“I wish I could say the same.”
She studied me for a long moment, her expression softening.
“Ven, mija.”
She gently rested her hand against my shoulder.
“We have much to talk about.”
She led me into the kitchen and motioned toward one of the stools at the bar.
“Sit, mija.”
I stayed where I was.
“I can’t.”
She looked at me for a long moment, then pulled the chair out herself.
“Sit.”
There wasn’t an ounce of frustration in her voice.
She wasn’t asking anymore.
She wasn’t demanding either.
She simply knew I would.
Something inside me gave out, and I lowered myself into the chair. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was until my body finally stopped moving.
She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, filling a kettle with water before placing it on the stove. Every movement was slow and familiar, like she’d done it a thousand times before. There was no panic in her. No urgency.
I couldn’t understand it.
“How are you so calm?” I asked.
She smiled to herself.
“Because one of us has to be.”
I watched her gather two mugs from the cabinet before opening a drawer and pulling out a few tea bags.
“I don’t want tea.”
“I know.”
“I want answers.”
“And you’ll have them.”
She placed one mug in front of me but left it empty while she waited for the water to boil.
The silence stretched between us.
Most people would’ve rushed to fill it.
She didn’t.
The only sounds in the room were the kettle beginning to warm and the faint laughter of Camila and Natalie upstairs.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“You said you’ve been waiting for me.”
“I have.”
“How did you know I’d come?”
She rested both hands on the edge of the counter.
“I didn’t know when.”
She looked at me.
“I only knew someday you would.”
“Who told you?”
She smiled softly.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You can’t…”
I leaned forward.
“…or you won’t?”
She held my eyes.
“I can’t.”
Something about the way she answered made me stop asking.
It wasn’t stubbornness.
It was conviction.
She wasn’t protecting herself.
She was protecting something else.
The kettle began to whistle.
She poured the hot water into both mugs before sliding mine toward me.
“Drink.”
I wrapped my hands around the warm mug but didn’t lift it.
“I’m thirty-one years old.”
“I know.”
“I have a husband.”
“I know.”
“I have children.”
Her expression softened.
“I know.”
“They’re gone.”
She reached across the counter and laid her hand gently over mine.
“No, mija.”
I looked up.
“They are not gone.”
The tears I’d been holding back came all at once.
“I can’t get to them.”
“No.”
“You miss them.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
She let the silence settle again before quietly saying,
“Grief has a way of making us believe we’ve lost something forever.”
She squeezed my hand once.
“But sometimes…”
She looked down into her tea.
“…we’ve only lost our way back to it.”
I wiped at my face.
“So there is a way back?”
“There is.”
Hope hit me so suddenly it hurt.
“How?”
She looked at me with eyes that somehow carried both kindness and sorrow.
“That’s the part you’re not going to like.”
She took a slow sip of her tea before setting the mug back down.
“There are rules, mija.”
“And every one of them is going to ask something from you.”
Francisco’s mother waited until I’d taken another sip of tea before she spoke again.
“You asked how you get back.”
I nodded.
She folded her hands together on the counter between us.
“There are rules.”
The words settled over the room like they had been waiting years to be spoken.
“They are not mine,” she continued. “I did not make them. I cannot change them. I can only give them to you.”
I swallowed hard.
“If I follow them…”
She looked at me for a long moment before answering.
“You’ll have the opportunity to find your way home.”
“Opportunity?”
She nodded.
“There are no guarantees in this life, mija.”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted.
I looked down into my tea.
“What’s the first rule?”
“You must tell no one what has happened.”
I frowned.
“That’s easy.”
She smiled gently.
“You think it is.”
“I do.”
“There will come a day when you’ll want someone to understand why you’re grieving things that haven’t happened yet. There will come a day when you’ll be tempted to explain yourself.”
She paused.
“You cannot.”
I nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
She continued.
“The second…”
Another pause.
“…you cannot interfere with what is meant to happen.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you cannot chase tomorrow before tomorrow arrives.”
My heart immediately knew what she meant.
“No.”
She didn’t answer.
“No,” I repeated, shaking my head. “I’m not staying away from Cisco.”
“You must.”
“He’ll be sixteen.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be fifteen.”
“I know.”
“I could find him.”
“I know.”
“I could tell him everything. Or not. We could just be happy earlier.”
Her eyes softened.
“I know.”
I felt tears burning again.
“You don’t understand.”
A sad smile crossed her face.
“I understand more than you think.”
The words hung between us.
Not because of what they said.
Because of what they didn’t.
I looked away first.
“What if I accidentally see him?”
“You will.”
I looked back up.
“What?”
She smiled.
“Our lives are smaller than we think, mija.”
For just a heartbeat, something passed through her eyes.
Almost like she’d nearly said too much.
“When the time is right…”
She stopped herself.
“…you’ll meet exactly as you were meant to.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t need to go looking.”
I sat with that for a long moment.
“And the last rule?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she reached over and gently straightened the mug in front of me.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than before.
“This one is the hardest.”
My stomach tightened.
“You must not try to spare yourself the pain you remember.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
“No.”
“If you change the road…”
“I said no.”
“…you change where it leads.”
I stood so quickly my chair scraped across the floor.
“I’m not doing that.”
She remained seated.
“I am not marrying him again.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“I’m not letting him hurt me.”
“I know.”
“I’m not living through six years of hell just because someone I don’t even know told me I have to.”
Her expression never changed.
She simply waited until I had nothing left to say.
"I'm..I'm sorry..." I said, looking at the floor and placing myself back into the chair.
Then she looked at me with the same kindness she’d shown me from the moment I walked through the door.
“Every mother wants to keep her children from pain.”
I frowned, confused.
“What?”
“Every mother.”
She held my gaze.
“If you could take every heartbreak from your children, you would.”
“Of course I would.”
She nodded.
“So would I.”
Silence settled between us.
“But if you stole every hardship from their lives…”
She gently shook her head.
“…you would also steal the people they become because of it.”
The room was so quiet I could hear the clock in the living room ticking.
“I know what I’m asking of you.”
She stood and walked around the counter until she was beside me.
“It is cruel.”
She placed one hand gently against my cheek.
“But cruel is not always wrong.”
A tear slipped down my face.
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
She smiled.
“No one ever does.”
She handed me my car keys.
“Go home.”
I looked down at them.
“Tomorrow…”
She smiled.
“…live tomorrow.”
“And the day after that…”
“…live that one too.”
She opened the front door for me.
“You are not meant to survive all of the years, today.”
I looked at her.
“You are only meant to survive one day.”
As I stepped onto the porch, she called after me one last time.
“Oh…”
I turned around.
She smiled that same peaceful smile.
“And don’t spend too much time worrying about our Cisco.”
My heart skipped.
“He’ll find his way.”
I smiled weakly.
“I hope so.”
“So do I.”
I thought she meant someday.
She didn’t.
The drive home felt different.
I wasn’t searching for answers anymore.
Now I was carrying them.
The roads I’d flown down only a few hours earlier suddenly seemed slower. Every stop sign. Every red light. Every passing car reminded me that the world hadn’t changed at all.
Only I had.
By the time I pulled into the driveway, the knot in my stomach had returned. I stared at the house for a long moment with my hands still wrapped around the steering wheel.
I was sure this was the part where everything fell apart.
My mom would know I’d taken the car.
The boys would be crying.
I’d be grounded before I’d even made it through my first full day back in 2010.
I took a deep breath, climbed out of the car, and quietly stepped inside.
The television was on.
Oliver was lying on his stomach in the living room floor, completely focused on cartoons. Evan sat beside him with a handful of blocks scattered around his feet, happily stacking them into a crooked tower only to knock it back over again.
Eliza looked up from the couch when I walked in.
“There you are,” she said.
Not angry.
Not worried.
Just… relieved.
“You hungry? I made grilled cheese.”
I blinked.
“You… made lunch?”
She shrugged like it wasn’t worth mentioning.
“They were hungry.”
I looked toward the hallway.
My mother’s bedroom door was still closed.
“Mom’s still sleeping?”
Eliza nodded.
“She came out for a minute earlier, but she wasn’t feeling good.”
Of course.
I didn’t need to ask anything else.
I already knew.
My dad wouldn’t be home until evening. Mom would stay in that room until she felt like coming out. And if the boys needed something…
Eliza would figure it out.
She always did.
Guilt settled heavily in my chest.
She was only eleven.
She should’ve been outside riding bikes with her friends or playing pretend with Barbies in her room.
Instead, she was making lunch and keeping two little brothers entertained because that’s what happened in our house.
I wondered if she’d ever realize how much of her childhood she’d quietly given away.
Or if she’d simply grow up believing that’s what daughters were supposed to do.
“You okay?” she asked.
I forced a smile.
“Yeah.”
It was a lie.
She didn’t push.
She just smiled back before turning her attention to Evan, who’d started laughing at the tower he’d just destroyed for the tenth time.
I slipped quietly down the stairs, walked the hallway and into my bedroom.
The house was exactly as I’d left it that morning.
The unmade bed.
The stack of CDs on my dresser.
The faded posters on the wall.
It was all so painfully familiar.
I kicked off my shoes and collapsed backward onto the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
Francisco’s mother’s words echoed in my head.
You are only meant to survive one day.
One day.
I could do one day.
I turned my head toward the wall beside my bed, where a calendar hung just above my desk.
Tomorrow’s date had been circled in thick black marker.
First Day of School.
OH. MY. GOD.
Sophomore Year.
I’d forgotten.
A slow laugh escaped me.
Not because anything was funny.
Because somehow, in the middle of losing my husband, my children, and sixteen years of my life…
I’d completely forgotten I had to go back to high school.
I pulled the blanket over my face and groaned.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
For the first time since waking up in this life…
The future didn’t feel sixteen years away.
It felt like tomorrow morning.